The blog

New version of Windows AntiSpyware Beta is out

If you’re using the beta release of Windows AntiSpyware, be sure to get the latest update:

Since releasing Windows AntiSpyware (Beta) on January 6, 2005, we have received feedback from customers and have made enhancements to the software based on this feedback. We have enhanced some of the real-time protection agents, added new threat categories, and improved stability and performance. If you are using a previous version you can simply upgrade to the refreshed version.

I haven’t looked carefully at this yet, but based on the description it sounds like a fairly modest update.

RSS shootout at DEMO

DEMO’s ringmaster, Chris Shipley, likes to organize related products into clusters of two or three. That makes it easy for people who are interested in a particular technology or type of product to arrange their schedules. It also turns some sessions into mini-shootouts.

That’s what happened yesterday when Pluck and Onfolio had back-to-back slots on the schedule. On the surface, both are fairly similar products that create custom Explorer bars for reading RSS feeds and saving snippets of a Web page. I’m intensely interested in this type of product, because this is what I do all the time. If I can find a single product that can help me keep track of bits of useful information, I’ll be a happy camper.

Last year, I tried early versions of both products and quickly determined that neither one would work for me. At DEMO, both companies were announcing new versions (Onfolio is still in a preview release), so I decided to take a closer look. In a nutshell, I’m drawn to Onfolio and not immediately impressed by Pluck.

Pluck feels like a simple feed reader and search tool that has a few research functions grafted on. It does a good job of helping me put together canned searches (what it calls Perches) on eBay and Amazon, and it does a pretty good job of helping me find feeds. I had to use the online help to figure out how to import my feeds into Pluck. When I found a page I wanted to save, I “plucked” it and Pluck saved a 50–word excerpt from the beginning of the page (or from the text I had selected) along with a link to the entire page. To see more, I had to visit the original page. I could right-click on a saved item and change the name or description, but that’s it. In essence, this is a fairly slick bookmark manager.

By contrast, Onfolio feels like a research tool that has RSS functions tightly integrated into it. I can right-click on a Web page or a feed item, and I get the option to save the selected text, image, or entire page – or for that matter, the entire site – to what Onfolio calls a collection. When I save a snippet, it appears in a dialog box where I can add my own notes about why I saved it. Feeds and saved snippets appear in an elegant newspaper view that I can sort, filter, and customize. I can export the saved snippets to an XML file, to my blog, or to any application. Onfolio looks slicker than Pluck, too, probably because it’s built using the .NET Framework.

Onfolio

I’ll keep evaluating both products for a few weeks, but I have much higher hopes for Onfolio. 

Dear Microsoft, what’s in this new Media Player version?

Dear Microsoft,

When you release a new update to Windows Media Player 10 like the one that mysteriously appeared in the Microsoft Download Center yesterday, it would be nice if you also included some documentation on what sort of changes are included. I noticed a “Music Assistant” flash past as the install proceeded, and the new version number is 3802. But it would be really, really nice if I knew a few more details.

Thanks for listening.

Multi-layered defenses

I’ve been reading a couple of long discussions about antispyware software lately, and one piece of advice that comes up a lot is the need for a multi-layered defense. I agree that multi-layered defenses are essential, but I’ve seen advice from too many people who are unclear on the concept. More than a few people think that they’ve achieved the goal of having multiple layers of protection if they install a whole bunch of security software. Sorry, that’s not correct.

A true multi-layer defense includes effective protection at different sequential points along the route to you. It deliberately does not duplicate protective software at a single layer. So, to take spam as an example, this would constitute an effective multi-layer protection strategy:

  • Filtering at your e-mail server.
  • Filtering at your e-mail client.
  • Technical measures to hide your e-mail address on Web pages and online forums.
  • Use of temporary e-mail addresses for correspondence with untrusted people or firms.

See how that’s different from just loading up on two or three different anti-spam programs? Likewise, a proper multi-layered defense against spyware consists of at least the following measures:

  • Measures to completely block unauthorized software.
  • Measures to prevent social engineering attacks.
  • Restrictions to limit the ability of untrained or unsophisticated users to make damaging changes to the system.
  • Effective measures to undo system changes and completely remove installed software.
  • Periodic scanning routine to verify that all layers are working.

Notice that I didn’t say “Scan your system weekly with three different antispyware programs”?

Will new Microsoft add-ons trigger new antitrust charges? No.

In a comment on another post, Thomas Brock asks:

So… Will these additions to AV services, the anti-spyware services, the media playsforsure services and the internet and desktop search services add to the monopoly charges?

Short answer: No. Everything Microsoft does with Windows has to be cleared by the Department of Justice. That was one of the terms of the original antitrust settlement. Reasonable (and not-so-reasonable) people may disagree over how fair that settlement was, but the DOJ holds the cards and they get veto power over lots of decisions. You can also be certain that any decision to add a feature has already been reviewed by a room full of lawyers.

My personal opinion is that security features belong in the operating system. Internet connectivity and Web browsing tools are an essential part of any computer operating system today. Forcing Microsoft to maintain an environment where users must purchase add-on products so that they can safely use core features of the operating system is just wrong.

Search capability belongs in the OS as well. In fact, it’s always been there; it just hasn’t been implemented well. If other people can do it better, more power to them. That’s been the model so far for alternative browsers, and it seems to be working just fine. Firefox has been downloaded 25 million times, mostly by people using Internet Explorer. There’s nothing in Windows that keeps me from downloading, installing, or using Firefox. This is a great example of a product that does a better job than Windows and is deservedly reaping success.

Update: Symantec’s CEO, John Thompson, seems to agree, according to these remarks from yesterday’s RSA conference, as published in the seattlepi.com Microsoft Blog:

On whether Symantec would raise antitrust objections over Microsoft’s decision to offer free anti-spyware protection to Windows users: “I’d rather fight Microsoft in the marketplace because we’re convinced we can whup ’em. So this is not about showing up in Washington or whining on someone’s doorstep about what Microsoft can or might do. To the extent that they violate the position of prominence that they have, be assured that we’ll be watching, but whining in Washington about press releases or pointing to left field by Bill and his team, I mean, of what value is that?”

Not to mention that the complaint would go nowhere.

More stuff I saw at DEMO

Here are a few interesting products I saw yesterday at DEMO.

Cloudmark (formerly SpamNet) showed off a browser add-on called SafetyBar for Internet Explorer. It’s a logical extension of their SafetyBar for Outlook and Outlook Express, which uses a community-based filtering system to very effectively block spam and viruses. The idea behind the SafetyBar for IE is simple: You install the add-in, which puts a new toolbar in the IE window (sorry, this product doesn’t work with Firefox). Every time you visit a Web site you can rate it as safe or unsafe. Meanwhile, an entire community of other Cloudmark users are doing the same. If you receive an e-mail with a link to a Web site that’s “phishing” for personal information, chances are the site has already been rated unsafe, which means you’ll see a warning message when you click the link. My take? It’s still a reactive process. This sort of checking should be done at the ISP level, and it shouldn’t be up to the user to install yet another piece of security software. I’m also concerned that the overhead of checking URLs against the Cloudmark database will slow down browsing.

Photoleap showed off a very interesting free application that solves some of the inherent problems with sharing digital photos. E-mail is a terrible way to share photos, especially hi-res copies of multiple images. Online services add an unnecessary layer of complexity. Photoleap (available in Windows and Mac versions) lets you open what looks like an ordinary e-mail window and drag in a bunch of photos. You add the recipients’ addresses and your message and click Send. The program converts the photos into thumbnails and sends a link to the recipient, who can then install Photoleap to pick up the full assortment of pictures you sent. I definitely want to try this one out. The free version limits photos to 2 megapixels and 25 photos per message and also displays ads in a sidebar. If you want to send or receive larger photos or send more than 25 at a time (and get rid of those pesky ads), pay $29 for the Plus version. You can try the Plus version free for 30 days.

Photoleap

Teleo has a new voice-over-IP service that gives you a personal phone number for $4.95 a month and the opportunity to make free PC-to-PC calls and receive unlimited calls from anyone (with or without a PC) or send calls to any number (including land lines) for a pretty low cost. Generally, the cost was very low – in the 2–cents-a-minute range for outbound calls from the U.S. to land lines in Europe. I haven’t been tempted by the Skype hype, but this one sounds like a tremendous deal. (Update: Stuart Henshall has a longer evaluation of Teleo and calls it “a real winner.” I found the link via his Skype Journal.) 

I’ll have more later today.

More thoughts on DEMO

Dwight Silverman of the Houston Chronicle has resurrected his blog at the Houston Chronicle. That’s good news! (Dwight, where’s the RSS feed?) In one of his first posts, he points out that I was at Demo yesterday but not updating as frequently as he wishes I would have.

I plead not guilty by reason of strategy. Yes, I could have sat in the front row with Jason and Marc and Scoble and Buzz and the rest of the live-blogging crew, but frankly they were doing a better job than I could dream of doing. If you wanted the play by play, Blogging Demo was the place to go, which was why I pointed to it. (And now, I presume, the domain gathers dust until the next DEMO conference, in the fall?)

Anyway, the point of this site is to try to wrap some context around what I saw the past few days. I’ll pass along my impressions of a few products that caught my eye, but I’ll also try to pull together the larger lessons of the conference.